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When I was a kid, cars defined you. Your status was visible in your automobile. While some of that is prevalent today, most of it has gone away.
When I was a kid, there were no foreign cars. OK, of course they were somewhere, but in reality they had little impact. The war had ended and no one, at least no one I knew, would ever think of a German or Japanese car. I did have a Morris Minor in 1962, but that’s English and some of them existed, just without much impact. When I bought my first VW in 1963, there were parents of some of my friends who would refuse to drive in a German vehicle and that was just the way it was.
The hierarchy of automobiles in my house was the General Motors line. There were no Chryslers, and especially no Fords in our family.. So it went from Chevrolet to Pontiac to Oldsmobile to Buick to Cadillac.
When I was a kid, there were no foreign cars. OK, of course they were somewhere, but in reality they had little impact. The war had ended and no one, at least no one I knew, would ever think of a German or Japanese car. I did have a Morris Minor in 1962, but that’s English and some of them existed, just without much impact. When I bought my first VW in 1963, there were parents of some of my friends who would refuse to drive in a German vehicle and that was just the way it was.
The hierarchy of automobiles in my house was the General Motors line. There were no Chryslers, and especially no Fords in our family.. So it went from Chevrolet to Pontiac to Oldsmobile to Buick to Cadillac.
Rich people drove Cadillac’s. There were no arguments there. My uncle, who was the rich guy in our family, always drove a Cadillac. He even had a special numbered license plates which my father assured me were given to special people who had the political pull to get these. This was in the days before vanity plates where you pay for your own craziness.
I remember a friend whose father had an Imperial and it was impressive, and even my father acknowledged the beauty of it, and knew it was expensive, but of course a Chrysler product so we didn’t discuss it. We simply were a brand loyal General Motors family.
My father liked my first car, a 1950 Ford, but it was a kid’s car so it didn’t matter to him. He thought the Morris Minor was a bit of a wreck, which it was, and he liked the VW. The VW bus I bought in 1969 was a real treat to be in and he came along when I picked it up. He was surprised by the whole experience.
He passed away in 1970, leaving his Buick Riviera to me.
I hadn’t thought about all this. Having had so many different cars, vans and trucks over the rest of my life, this story hadn’t struck me until recently, when I bought a Cadillac. It’s not new, but looks it, sort of. It wasn’t expensive, at about the cost of my wife’s used Ford Escape. It’s a SUV, or a crossover model, the SRX, and is black, powerful, smooth and heavy and all the things my father would say about Cadillac’s.
I once took a friend for a ride in my father-in-laws 1972 Cadillac Sedan Deville because he asked me to, as he had never been in one and simply wanted the experience.
I remember a friend whose father had an Imperial and it was impressive, and even my father acknowledged the beauty of it, and knew it was expensive, but of course a Chrysler product so we didn’t discuss it. We simply were a brand loyal General Motors family.
My father liked my first car, a 1950 Ford, but it was a kid’s car so it didn’t matter to him. He thought the Morris Minor was a bit of a wreck, which it was, and he liked the VW. The VW bus I bought in 1969 was a real treat to be in and he came along when I picked it up. He was surprised by the whole experience.
He passed away in 1970, leaving his Buick Riviera to me.
I hadn’t thought about all this. Having had so many different cars, vans and trucks over the rest of my life, this story hadn’t struck me until recently, when I bought a Cadillac. It’s not new, but looks it, sort of. It wasn’t expensive, at about the cost of my wife’s used Ford Escape. It’s a SUV, or a crossover model, the SRX, and is black, powerful, smooth and heavy and all the things my father would say about Cadillac’s.
I once took a friend for a ride in my father-in-laws 1972 Cadillac Sedan Deville because he asked me to, as he had never been in one and simply wanted the experience.
I owned a 1956 Coupe Deville for a year or so but it was a hand me down and older (about 11 years when I got it) and therefore did not impress my father.
It’s just a funny thing, the thought that somewhere my father is smiling, or maybe even laughing, because I finally made the right decision!
It’s just a funny thing, the thought that somewhere my father is smiling, or maybe even laughing, because I finally made the right decision!
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